Musical History

Growing up in a musical family always helps to develop one's musical talent, but it also can be a pain too.  I never had a choice on whether or not I was going to take piano lessons, be in the church choir, or be in band. I was pretty much forced into all of them against my will.  But in the long run it helped me, I'll admit, because  they all kept me busy and out of the house (which was my parents intentions I think).  
         I took piano lessons over 10 years ago and lasted maybe 4 months before I quit and went the art route instead. I just didn't like to practice and I hated the pieces I had to play.  Even though I quit I didn't stop learning though, my mom has been a piano teacher for as long as I can remember so I would always pick things up from her and her students.  Plus my sister wasn't as lucky as me and was forced to stay with piano as long as she lived in the house.  Of course she is an excellent player now, and has won every competition she's been too so far, but I have seen the amount of pain and work she has had to go through to get that far and I am glad I got out when I did. 
    As the years passed though, I did pick up a piano piece here and there and teach myself to play it.  I first started with the Jurassic Park theme after it came out, then later with the Forrest Gump and St. Elmo's Fire themes. Then one day I came across a piano piece claiming to be from Final Fantasy.
    At that time I had only played Final Fantasy 7 and so my knowledge in Final Fantasy music was very limited.  But somehow I came across a site that had sheet music called "Tina" from this Final Fantasy game.  I didn't know if it was real or not but I printed it anyways just to see what it sounded like.   Of course I couldn't play it, so I asked the piano teacher of the household (my mother) to sight-read  it for me. She played it for me and I loved it, but unlike conventional CD players, my mother wouldn't rewind and play the track over and over. She told me that if I wanted to hear it again, I had to learn it.  And learn it I did.    
    I think the plan backfired on my mother, she was hoping that I would play a little piano here and there just to keep it in my system. What she didn't know was I would play it for hours on end from then on.  And it got to a point where she told me I needed to learn other music just because she heard Tina too many times. In my search for other pieces, I came across an MP3 calling itself Tina too. And what do I find out? There are recordings of these Final Fantasy piano songs!  Thus my introduction to the Final Fantasy Piano Collections.
    Soon I was searching for the recordings of the songs and if I liked them I would either arrange a piano piece of them (through lots of listening or a midi) or come across the actual sheet music.  The next few pieces I picked up were Rydia, Coin Song, Kids Run Through The City Corner, Mystic Forrest, and Theme of Love. I didn't pick them up all at once though, it took me an entire year to play and learn each one (but I didn't play every day, maybe once a week or so).  Also during this time I created sheet music of the Parasite Eve Main Theme (which turned out to be WAY to hard for me at the time) and some Final Fantasy 7 pieces. 
   It had been a year since I came across Tina,  and a new Final Fantasy game was on the way.  While the American version of Final Fantasy 8 wasn't due for quite a few months, the Japanese version had been released already.  So music from the game was already trickling down onto the Internet and I was there to catch it.  The first and only piece I arranged (before I had even played the game I might add) was Julia's Piano theme.  It took me a while to create the sheet music, and I eventually had to transpose the piece to C since I couldn't play with 4 sharps. I soon started to learn the piece and had it down within a few weeks.  I would later find out the song would only play once in the entire game, and Julia wasn't even a major character in the game. But the piece is a variation of the main theme in the game so it does play major part in the story. On a side note, I still play Julia's Piano song every time I play the piano. It is always the last song I play, if you hear me playing it it means I am done practicing and am going to find something else to do...   

 Check back later for the rest of the story...